First English review of the CNPS-7000 at Casejunkies . The short story: it gives the same degree of cooling as a 6500 with a considerably lower fan speed - about 1300 vs. 1800 rpm. Even in the reviewer's quiet system (low-voltage fans, passive GPU cooler) it was considered silent at its quiet settin...

If you survey the noise tests on Storagereview, faster drives are generally louder; I'd be surprised if the 10,000 rpm WD was anywhere near as quiet as a Barracuda. I am likely to go with the new Barracuda 7200.7+ (see other post for specs).

Maybe 200w on average use, but not on momentary max draw - see the Tom's Hardware website for the calculations on components.... Granted, you may never hit such extremes as 90-100% on all components simultaneously, but if you want to be certain of avoiding any instabilities caused by voltage drops, ...

Re Schnee's system - valuable information there. It should be kept in mind that a current high-end 3d card like a 9700Pro or a Geforce FX is drawing 30+ or so more watts than a 9000; and if you were to array a pair of the new Barracuda 7200.7's rather than the WDs, you would be looking at an extra 1...

Thanks for the feedback. I have subsequently read on some other hardware forum that your experience of a drop in the noise frequency is a consequence of some kind of calibration/"learning" process that occurs with new 180GXP drives.

The idle spec for the multi-platter versions of the 7200.7/7+ is identical to the multi-platter rating for the B-IV and the B-V: 2.5 bels. Single platter version has a less-impressive spec: "<2.5 bels" vs. the 2.1 rating for the others. Still, the multiplatter specs are .3-.5 bels better than the 18...

I've noticed a few comments in this forum about these latest GXP drives making a chirping or cricket-like noise every 10 minutes or so. I was planning on picking up 2 of these drives in the next few days, and wondered if you could weigh in as to whether you have this happening on your drive, and if ...

I'm in the same boat as you. That dB figure looks totally unbelievable to me, for obvious reasons. From the reading I've done it looks like the only currently available higher-wattage semi-quiet PSUs that have some reputation on this forum (although not everyone agrees on their relative merits) are ...

Tomshardware.com has a recent review of 21 or so PSUs that provides you with the info needed to calculate your maximum potential power draw for a modern system, although he misses speccing out the 9700 pro or the new Geforce FX video cards, the use of which will increase power drain substantially ov...

Thanks d_kay, there was an unfortunate typo in what I had written which confused you -

"could you tell me if you had the Fortron unit for the actual Verax unit Tom reviewed?" - should have been "Fortron unit or the acutal Verax unit" - I see from what you clipped it was the latter.

I was also dissapointed, reading that great review on THG. I heard an annoying high-pitched sound all the time. And since I like the continuos hair-dryer sound much better I sent it back. I'll try the Zalman piece next time, or I'll wait until they come up with cheap, dependable fanless PSU's . :cr...

That is a lot of power, and it makes it all the more important to know what rail it is being drawn from to make the best PSU choice. Standard AGP cards are indicated by AMD specs as drawing on the +3.3 rail, but I suspect that these cards (including the 9700 Pro) draw most of their power from the +1...

Hardly...This post addresses a question pertinent to assembling the quietest system that can support state of the art gaming - directly related to SPC's mission of helping promote quiet computing, and no doubt of interest to some readers.

Not necessarily true - Gainward is promising a low-noise FX, perhaps with some passive/active combination cooling. It's been done with the 9700 now by Sapphire and Zalman; the FX is just the next step.

Does anyone know the amperage or wattage requirement for the FX, and what voltage rail this power would be drawn from? A Google search proved fruitless. Knowing these specs will make it possible to determine the quietest PSU for use with this card. (I know - "Who's going to hear the PSU with that bl...

Sapphire will soon be shipping a 9700 Pro with a passive Zalman cooler and big RAM heatsinks - it's been reviewed somewhere on the Web. Also coming - an ultraquiet Geforce Fx from Gainward (or so they claim).

MikeC wrote: Exoticpc's answer is reasonably thorough. Why do you doubt it? Because as I mentioned they are hardly a disinterested party in this, with their own PSU to sell. I checked IBM's specs on the 180GXP - it does indeed need 2A at +12v for spin-up, so Exotic's answer with respect to HDDs is ...

18 db is too loud? We're getting into borderline (or maybe not so borderline) obsessive-compulsive disorder territory here....

Expected next month (Feb.), Zalman is claiming that this PSU will be "more stable, yet quieter than the previous 300W model". Peak power output is 455W. Can't wait to get my hands on one... especially after reading here that an owner of an Ultra-QuietPC 460 watt unit - my earlier choice - didn't fin...

Zalman/'s new CNPS7000-Cu cooler, a finalist for PC Magazine's "Best of Comdex" award, is about to hit retail, and it sports some pretty flashy numbers. From the Zalman forum: "2. When do you plan to make it available to purchase in the retail market? --> The first retail version will be released in...

Knowing the Inquirer, this is just a REALLY early April Fool's joke....

Anyone buying a PSU for a gaming rig who has an eye on future upgrades needs to keep in mind that the recent history of graphics card upgrades suggest that you be generous in providing a power cushion - a 9700 Pro has a minimum requirement of a 300 watt PSU, and depending on what source you go by, t...

Part of the reason for its high power requirement must lie in the fact that it has something like 40% more transistors than a P4...plus you need to factor in the speed at which they are pushing it (CPUs always run hotter when overclocked, for example).

Tom's has a review of the first Geforce FX reference card. While it shows a slight-to-moderate performance gain over a 9700Pro, the noise it makes receives a full page of commentary plus Tom's offers some attached sound files so you can hear the thing for yourself - to quote Tom's, "it sounds like a...

You should do the math youself. All numbers are there.

And you should do a spellcheck.... data on Athlon boards isn't directly relevant for P4 systems.

New data on Geforce FX - boardmakers are saying 350 watt minumum PSUs are required. These cards have a second power connection a la Radeon 9700.

On the German test, knowing the % on each rail is just not too useful - gives no indication of how much A is needed for each rail for a given system. Ralf, no doubt the Antec 480 with its 22A on the 12v rail has no problems with this type of setup, it's just that by SPCR standards it is not a very q...

Firingsquad recently posted a how-to to help determine your system's power requirements when shopping for a new power supply - see http://firingsquad.gamers.com/guides/power_supply/ . Using their figures (some of which come from the AMD guidelines), a 2.8G P4 with 2 HDD, sound, DVD and CD-RW, + 2X51...

Thanks for the link! Seems to me this would the perfect product for reviewing at this site.... As the Fortron/Verax unit this mod is based on (at least the 300 watt version) tested so well and quietly on the recent Tom's Hardware PSU comparison, coming out as his top pick, I may wind up buying this ...

That new Lian-Li Silent PC case looks intriguing... Model PC-6070. Still not up at the Lian-Li website though.

I'm not so sure about those windowed cases being EMI shielded. I heard from someone in the biz a while back that in fact they are not, and they are really illegal to sell as consumer cases for home use because of that. It's interesting that none of the case websites I have visited - even high-end on...